Only a handful of people remained in the inn’s common room when I entered. Since Ferrum had not yet invented electric lights, it was incredibly rare for people to regularly stay up after nightfall. The Innkeeper was gone, and the common room was lit by just a single lamp hanging from a wooden post. There was just enough light in the common room for people to carefully make their way to their rooms. There certainly wasn’t enough light to read. The lighting wasn’t a problem for me. An ephemeral wisp of flame followed me into the room like a loyal minion, casting the common room in much brighter light.

The only people still in the common room were Eadric and Kinro. Eadric’s eyes were fixed on the door to one of the private rooms on the second floor. He must have been worried about the girl. She was in bad shape when I brought her in, and several visible bruises marked the visible parts of her body that weren’t there when she came to the inn the first time.

At least Kinro was vertical. His eyes were bleary, and he leaned heavily against a table, but he was able to keep his back straight.

“What happened with the girl?” Kinro asked, trying to blink his eyes back into focus unsuccessfully.

I unhooked the deer mask from my belt and placed it on the table in front of Kinro as a form of explanation. “The girl was attacked by men wearing this mask.” I turned to Eadric and asked, “Have you ever seen people wear this mask before?”

After a moment of thought, Eadric said, “Yeah, it was a long time ago, but I would see men wearing masks like this around the palace in Dracmead. Some of those men met with Duke Olofir. Does this mask mean something?”

“Yes, it does,” I said cryptically. “It means Uncle Olofir isn’t doing a very good job keeping his allegiances hidden.”

Olofir Vulpa, Duke of Dracheim, was technically not my uncle. He was technically my second cousin once removed. His grandfather took on the name “Vulpa” when it was clear that he would not become the head of House Feldrast. Ten years later, when every member of House Drac died under mysterious circumstances, he became the Duke of Dracheim.

“Are you saying she was attacked by the Duke of Dracheim?” Eadric asked.

“No, we’re too far away from his realm. His power projection is lessened here,” I answered automatically.

More than half of the Etronian nobility was aligned with the Lich Cult, and the rest accepted them as a fact of life. Some nobles spent their wealth on extravagant parties, and others spent their wealth searching for the secret of eternal life. There were a dozen nobles in the capital who would make better suspects. If I wanted to figure out who really attacked my fellow reincarnate, I would have to figure out her identity first.

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Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Innkeeper exit out of the girl’s room. Quickly and quietly, she walked down the stairs and approached me. Once she got close enough to communicate with me without waking half of the inn’s tenants, she said, “The girl says she wants to talk to you, alone.”

There was some confusion and concern in Innkeeper’s voice. She seemed confused at the girl’s desire to talk to me so quickly. I could tell that she advised the girl to rest for a little while before talking at length, and the girl must have been adamant.

“I understand,” I said, moving away from the table and taking the deer mask with me. “I’ll go talk to her. Eadric, there’s a horse-sized dog outside that needs some food. Do you think you could bring him a roasted chicken?”

“Yes, my lord,” Eadric said automatically, and I squinted angrily in his direction. I preferred to keep my noble status a secret when we were traveling, but there was little I could do to stop him. His training as a knight was bone-deep, and no amount of my criticism would stop his automatic reactions.

I clipped the deer mask to my belt as I walked up the stairs. The morbid feeling of my muscles creaking and my bones straining as I lifted my body to the second floor reminded me of my body’s weakness.

Looking at the deer mask created a pit in my stomach. It reminded me of the line I had crossed just a few minutes before. I was a killer, and that could not be undone. It was important, however, that I keep that mask as a reminder for myself and the girl. Neither she nor I would benefit from forgetting the events of that night.

I knocked on the door to the girl’s room. A moment later, a tired voice called out, “Is that you, Lord Thale Feldrast?”

Name and title? Damn, I really had to work on my operational security. She knew way more about me than I knew about her.

“Yes,” I responded in English.

The wooden door opened slightly as it was pulled back by a weak force. Through the crack in the door, I saw the unsteady form of the girl. She was dressed in a nightgown that was a few sizes too big for her, and it seemed that she could lose her balance at any moment.

“Careful,” I said, automatically switching to Common in my moment of panic. I had spoken that language exclusively for so long that it had supplanted English as my primary language.

I pushed the door open and grabbed the girl’s arm to steady her. Years of practice dealing with frail patients kicked in, making me grab the girl’s arm. I was afraid that such sudden physical contact would cause her to panic after what she had just gone through, but she did not recoil.

“Is it true, are you from Earth?” the girl asked in English.

Despite myself, a broad, relieved smile appeared on my face. That sentence was the conclusive piece of evidence I needed to conclude that the girl was truly a reincarnate. The name of her hound could have been a coincidence, and her reactions to my earlier English provocations could have been circumstantial, but that one sentence she spoke proved her status to me beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“Yes, I was a doctor in Chicago,” I responded, smiling.

The girl looked at me with golden eyes that did not occur naturally on any human on Earth, and she started to cry. With tears streaming down her face, she said, “You’re real, aren’t you? You’re real?”

The girl’s words were interrupted by her sobbing. She reached up and threw her arms around my shoulders. I was barely able to remain standing as she wrapped me in a tight hug.

“That’s right,” I said, holding back tears of my own.